Buyers who want something for nothing

[onereik]

Hello everyone,

I am enjoying the fiverr experience, however it seems like most buyers want something for nothing nowadays.

Some people expect you to make them a complicated website for 5$ only, sad thing some buyers don’t understand that free is the most expensive, or that quality matters. specially when there is a huge amount of spammers and unqualified competitors, those who do everything for 5$ yet buyer receives nothing but a spaghetti code.

I do seriously care about the quality of work that I sell to my clients and I make good effort to deliver a high quality work.

My question is: Does fiverr attract good buyers? or does it only attract those who want everything for 5 dollars?

[misscrystal]

Both kinds.

[emmaki]

Yep, both kinds. Sometimes you get an unlucky run of the bad ones, which means its time to grit your teeth and put your foot down…

[onereik]

Thank you both for replying, doesn’t it seem like it attracts those who want things for $5 more than the good buyers?

[misscrystal]

Some days yes, some days no.

[Guest createsolution]

I agree with you, but that’s the core principle of Fiverr and the reason why it is so unique and doing so well. Fiverr attracts those who want things done fast and for a very affordable price. That’s it.

Even though client A is ordering your website gig for $5, doesn’t mean he can’t spend $50 on other gig. Your clients have a pain, you have the solution that will make it all go away. You decide what the price tag is.

Fiverr recently introduced Gig packages (allowing you to raise your prices while you increase the complexity of the offer - perfect in your case). Custom offers also have an increased maximum value.

I checked your gigs and they all seem to be complex tasks “build website”, “create extension”… all for $5.

Here is the thing: you received great feedback from your clients, now you have some room and credibility to experiment with your gigs. Create gig packages, encourage clients to request a custom gig on your profile, change your prices, offer a basic service for $5 and the website creation in a package with a higher value.

Some clients won’t like it and won’t order. Others will still order because at the end of the day they all care about quality and, again, you have the solution for a problem they are facing.

[onereik]

Hi Jennifer,

Thank you for your tips and advises, however there is nothing for $5 in my case it is obvious I can not create a complete website for $5 however I think maybe my gigs are a little bit confusing

Do you think I shall fix the description of my gigs?

I think maybe people are getting confused with my gigis, I don’t know.

It’s true fiver introduced gig packages but they are still not available in some categories, I still don’t have this option, so I think I got to wait and see

[Guest createsolution]

To me, it seems completely unreasonable that there are no Gig Packages for your category, you should suggest that to Fiverr.

Yes, your gigs are a little confusing, I would suggest you make them clear and summarized. Also, if possible, change the graphics you use to more appealing ones (e.g., modern websites you helped create).

You mentioned that there is nothing basic (for $5) that you can offer. I don’t specialize in your area but I am thinking: website audit, website recommendations, testing website from visitors’ point of view, test website’s response speed and make recommendations, etc.

I am not saying you should remove your gigs and create these basic ones, simply keep the ones that are working now (with feedback) and create new ones based on the suggestions above and see how it turns out.

[cyaxrex]

The problem here is that your gigs are great! Your basic gig descriptions say that you will do for $5 what some of the people I work with would pay at least $300 for (at least). The good news in this case is that if you are as good as what your reviews already say you are, you are going to make a killing on Fiverr.

The bad news is that you are offering way to much as standard. Fiverr has great buyers, but also some people who will see a deal and like yours and really make you work to deliver as comprehensive a deal as you are offering.

In this case, find a way to slim down your offering. Say you will build a one page site, but then explain how you can build a killer full website if people purchase your relevant gig extras.

Whatever you do, don’t loose faith, you are obviously really talented. The only problem is that your basic gig really is too good… In fact, I’m a little bit tempted to order from you now before you take my advice :).

[fivergraphics5]

Some times yes, some times no.

[Guest bindigo30]

Im having the same experience.

This week I had a buyer who liked my work and wanted me to write 4,750 words a week, provide photos, edit, proofread, create catchy headlines, write a weekly newsletter, regularly for his website approx 15-20 hrs of work.

When i tried to negotiate my rate as a freelance writer he absolutely flipped out, abused me, changed his 5 star feedback to one star negative feedback.

He wanted me to work all those hours for around a penny a word, after fivvers cut, it would workout to be around 75bks a week not to mention the exchange rate cut after its processed through PayPal it just wouldn’t be worth my time at that rate

He didn’t see reason, and is bent on destroying my page by lying in his feedback because he is upset that i wont work for him at that rate. All in all i worked out id be earning less than 4 dollars an hour.

I have a university degree in writing and have an active portfolio. I have written for government agencies and travel magazines.

I only joined fivver to branch out from corporate and travel writing, get some recent samples in different genres, and obtain new contacts and testimonials.

I have every right to negotiate my rate and turn down work that will be a waste of my time.

[shoukat112]

I found some good buyers on fiverr…i think only 10% buyers want everything for $5.

[ana2001]

put it this way. I am seller like all of you and yes, I get such buyers too, meaning they would love to have something for free for their dollar. There is nothing wrong with it though. Personally, when I go to BestBuy or Walmart myself, I also look for buy one get one for free and hey it makes me happy when I get a deal. Sometimes, I am even offered something for free in exchange if I get something to buy.

It’s really not about making the buyers to pay for everything. It’s about developing a good business relationship too. It counts believe me because I have seen buyers come back for more and more afterwords.

Just give it a try, I am not saying that you should or anyone should work for free but give it a try and you’ll see that it will matter at the end.

Hope you find my suggestions friendly.

Happy holidays all,
@ana2001

[onereik]

Yes, I read that fiver are deploying packages slowly into more categories so I think I got to wait and see.

Then I think I will have to rewrite my gigs, but I am not sure if there is anything I can offer for 5$.

I don’t think writing to a person a recommendation of two lines is worth anything, and not sure even if it will get me a 5 stars review or actually I will be believed, but I do understand your point I will try to rethink of my gigs and see what I can offer but I am 100% sure not even one page website can be made for 5$ by me, maybe they can find someone else to make them a page which they actually copy from the internet and just show it to the client. not sure how this turns out for those sellers and buyers, it is ridiculously amazing.

Thank you for the tips and advises Jennifer, I appreciate it.

[onereik]

No it is not for 5, nothing I offer is for 5, and if a person orders from me and thinks he is going to get anything for $5 I just cancel the order, sadly I just can not set a fixed price, I usually make the people who order from me order everything in the gig to get their job done, or I send them a custom offer, however I can not just write there is nothing for 5$ in my gigs, it will scare buyers off

One page website costs more than only 5$ and pages in websites development do not mean anything one page is like 10 pages sometimes and some other times it matters, still 5$ can not buy you a coffee nowadays.

You are welcome to order from me anytime you like 🙂

Thank you for your advise Cyaxrex 🙂

[cyaxrex]

Okay… I think I’m seeing the problem here a little bit more clearly now. Firstly, (and from my & I think most buyers perspective) if someone is looking for a service like web design and see your gig listed as *I will convert your existing website to a responsive website," with $5 listed as the price, this is exactly the service which they expect. This is Fiverr after all.

You say that nothing you offer is for $5. The problem then, is that if I click on your gig, you don’t say this. In fact, in the above case, your gig extras simply say, “I will do 1 day extra fast delivery for $15” and, “I will deliver the source code for $40.”

Straight away then, if I was looking for this service, I would order the basic gig without even messaging you first because at no point in your gig description do I see anything which tells me that you will not actually do this service for $5.

If then, you messaged me after ordering asking for more money, I would either insist that you did the work for $5 as advertised, or cancel. Moreover, in the first case, even if you did a great job, I would likely leave something like 3 star feedback saying “buyer beware, service not as advertised.”

I hope that this does not sound too critical, but if you come to Fiverr, the key is to offer a service that you can do for $5. No if’s, no but’s. In my case for example, I sell services that I sell on Fiverr on other platforms for £30 a time. Why do I use fiverr? Because Fiverr sends me a lot of work at a consistent rate and I often make more here in a day than I do anywhere else. In this case I don’t get angry because I know my services are worth more than I am selling them for, I simply word my gigs in a way to make sure that people know exactly what they are getting.

Lastly then, I know that a lot of sellers like you who offer services which are indisputably worth more than $5, might find the above words a little harsh, but buyers simply don’t think about what something is worth, they see the price that they want to pay and that’s it. Moreover, if I had your skills and lived in Cambodia (which I actually did for a while once) I would actually be able to make a significant amount of money selling such services for $5. Of course, I’m not actually saying, “hey go move to Cambodia,” but Fiverr is a global market place and in this case it’s not unreasonable for people to expect the world for $5, especially if it is being offered to them.

I hope this helps & that I haven’t offended anyone.

Kind Regards & Happy New Year,

Andy

[onereik]

Hi Andy,
Thank you for your tips and advises

Yes your words are kinda harsh but factual, at the same time I wonder how do people expect to get a whole complete website for $5?

If that type of buyer comes my way then I am sure he is not looking for quality and he wants the cheapest thing he can get, which means to hell with quality, and he just wants to order something that works and that’s it, one page of website can in noway be for $5 dollars I wonder how do people make such things for $5 dollars, do you even know that a simple static page with logo, a simple menu, a little bit of info and a footer can be up to 150 lines of code “logic” which means not less than 1000 words if I want to compare that to your gigs and writing work.

If you offer 300 words actual English words for $5 I don’t think I am the type of person who can offer 150 lines of code & logic for $5, I don’t even think that you can offer 1000 words for $5, simple equation.

I am actually talking about a very simple page, not something that is so complicated.

Regarding my gig “I will convert your existing website to a responsive website” I don’t think there is anything here can be offered for 5 as well, how does a buyer expect me to convert a website to a responsive for $5? not even one page, which could be up to hundreds of lines of code, or could be 5 lines of code it doesn’t matter how many lines of code some websites are too simple to convert some websites are just too complicated, so are you telling me I have to delete my gig in this case? since as for responsiveness there is nothing I can offer for that price?

Delivering the source code for $40 means the basic gig is basic gig $5 + $40 = $45, how does a buyer expect to receive some work without a source code? if there is no code then the buyer is buying just air like “nothing” the buyer is not going to get any source code which means nothing will be changed on his website.

Or do I have to sell people “Lines of Code” like I am Selling 5 lines of code for $5? and delivering them the 5 lines of code and nothing is working in the website, since in programming every thing is related to everything and if you forget a semicolon the whole thing will not work.

Simply if a buyer orders my gig before messaging me he will get his order canceled by me, don’t expect me to be a slave and sell my soul for $5 dollars, and I already canceled not less than 10 orders because they wanted everything for $5, I can not work for countless hours to get $5 in the end. If I work in Burger King or MacDonalds I can get more than $5 / per hour

I do understand that you are not telling me to go move to Cambodia, but do you expect to go to a company or a freelancer or anyone and tell them I want to make a website, I have $5 dollars what can you make me for $5 dollars?

The answer will simply be “Nothing” What do you want for 5$? an empty page? or 5% of a page? I mean like seriously what do people expect?

You are saying if you were in Cambodia you would actually be able to make a significant amount of money selling such services for $5 “I agree with you”. But do you know that I once got a client from the UK “First World Country” asking me to convert 3 websites to responsive for $5? I would have understood if he was from some poor African country or some far east or south Asian countries but coming from the UK and expecting the whole world for $5? this is seriously hilarious.

I am actually more of a rational person than an emotional but after reading your reply you made me want to close my fiverr account LOL. not that you were rude but like I said earlier your words are factual, anyways thank you very much for your help and for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it

I will try to squeeze my mind and see what I can offer for $5, but not sure what could be offered for $5 regarding website creation or converting a website to responsive?

All the best & Happy New Year,

Rei

[cyaxrex]

Hi Rei,

I really hoped that I wouldn’t offend or upset you. I’m really not trying to do that. Like I said in the beginning, I’ve had a look at your gigs & I have absolutely no doubt that that you are very talented. Moreover, I’ve built my own & other websites in the past and I know you can’t offer such services for $5.

What I am trying to say, is that on Fiverr, you do actually have to offer something as a minimum for $5.That after all, is why people use Fiverr. Whatever you do though, DON’T CLOSE YOUR FIVERR ACCOUNT!

Like I said previously, the reason I work on Fiverr is because I get a steady influx of consistent work through this site. No, writing content or copywriting like I do is not the same as writing code. However, to put things in perspective, there are people on here offering to write whole books and short stories for $5.

The trick is to break the services you can do down into $5 chunks. For instance a lot of my clients are looking to Search Engine Optimize their website. As you will probably know though, SEO in the main is just as much about having a fast & responsive website.

In this case, you could offer a service that speeds up peoples websites by compressing their .htaccess file. Then add other services on top that which make you more money.

Thinking along the same lines, if you have a website and can set up an affiliate program that pays you $20-$50 for every new sign up, you can actually offer to build people a 1 page website for $5, with the condition being that they use your hosting provider.

The simple thing is this. You have the skills, you just need to learn how to break them down and sell them. Moreover, I know how hard this can be. I’m just starting out offering animated video shorts as well as writing on Fiverr, but there is no way that I can offer to make people customized explainer videos and the like for $5 like a lot of people do. Presently then, I am experimenting with sales techniques and learning as I go.

In short then, just break things down yourself and experiment until things work right for you. Yes, its hard work, but trust me, whether you do it on Fiverr or elsewhere, it’s amazingly liberating when you can finally figure out how to sell what you can do and never have to go back to the day job.

Does all this make sense? I hope so. Either way best of luck. Whatever you do, just try to think outside the square.

Happy New Year My Friend,

Andy

[monamona01]

Yup I totally agree that sucks. But when they couldn’t get something for free they came to a website that sells things for $5. its not that surprising that this is a place that people want something for $5 really is it? Company name kinda gives it away don’t you think?

[Guest foxyoxy]

Yep! you get what you pay for! that’s for sure! I think fiverr’s real value is making connections with the seller’s that do have high quality products/services and relying on them for your needs.

[mallika255]

We can get the all type of buyer . some buyer really respect the work. and some want much work for free so just enjoy fiverr experience.

[onereik]

Hi Andy,

Not really, you didn’t offend or upset me at all.

My point was if I am going to attract this type of buyers then there is no need to waste my time on a fully complex issue for $5 dollars, If this buyer wants something huge for $5 then I must be not the right person for this job.

Fiverr doesn’t mean you can buy the whole world for $5, I think the idea of fiverr is to sell something for 5$ when it doesn’t take you more than 15 minutes to make, that means if I spend an hour working on something you ordered from me, you are going to pay me $20, I may charge you more, I may charge you less, it depends.

I will give you a simple example of how things work in real life; You go to a doctor, you tell him that you are in pain, it takes him 5 minutes to diagnose your health problem, he writes you a medicine, and then he makes you pay him something around $75.

The point is his 5 minutes are not worth $5 only, not just because he spent 5 minutes diagnosing your health problem it means he shall charge you $2 dollars. He spent 8 years studying and invested in his education to charge you that much.

One more thing in IT you charge based on the importance of the service you are selling, not based on how long you spend on it, I may solve a complicated issue in your software, database or whatever within 5 minutes while someone else may take months to solve that issue for you “Expertise Counts” It took me 10 years learning and time investment to learn how to make you this within 5 minutes.

You go to two freelancers; One of them is fresh and the other one has 15 years of experience, the fresh one told you it is going to take him 2 months to make you whatever you ordered from him and charges you $1000.

The one with years of experience told you he can make you this within two days and he said he will charge you $2500 for this

If you ask me who I am going to pick I will say definitely the one with years of experience, for zillions of reasons, and because I believe “FREE IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE”, I may go to the fresh one and pay him $1000 to do me this but in the future I will realize this is going to cost me more since the thing I ordered is not built properly, and scalability has not been taken into consideration.

I wanted to make a test now, I went to buyers request and I sent someone with $5 budget an offer for $120, he is asking for something that costs him not less than $1000 in real life.
Guess what his reply was?
His reply was like this “$120?” Like seriously how rude is that?
I politely said back:

Hi,

Thank you for contacting me, Yes $120 for the following:

1. …etc.
2. …etc.
3. …etc.
4. …etc.
5. …etc.
6. …etc.
7. …etc.
8. …etc.
   Please let me know if I may be of assistance

Best,

Rei

I think I have said a lot already, and there is not much left to say.

I will try and work on your tips guys and see how it goes.

Thank you for your time Andy 🙂

Rei

[misscrystal]

If you can’t do anything for $5 then you need to find something you CAN do for $5 since you have to offer something for only $5 even if it’s just $5 to consult with you.

[seofanatics]

The problem is not from Fiverr but sellers who are desperate to make money. If you really want to know where those cheapskate buyers got there mindset from, you definitely would have to post a request in the “buyer request” section. Imagine you post a request that you want someone to design a website to look exactly like Facebook (features included), and the first 10 offers ranges between $15 and $40, and maybe the 11th seller offers to do it for $8000. For buyers who outsource on fiverr, they will like to keep the most profit and award the project to $15 offer. Unfortunately, most of the low bidding sellers don’t understand the requirement, but eager to make money. These are the sellers that give Fiverr bad name.

I do understand that you can actually set your baseline above $5 in some subcategories, so it is not a must that you do something for $5.

For me it is not a bad thing if sellers charge less than what it would cost on the real world business, however, they should not in any case deliver poor quality services that can spoil fiverr’s reputation.

[easymedia]

One solution that I’ve seen to this problem was in an area that we’ve worked in, on Fiverr. We’ve run into Fiverr colleagues who offer premium video services that cannot viably be offered at $5. So in these cases, they start their $5 basic gig as a consulting fee. An example of a gig title reflecting this was “For $5, I will provide a consultation on my premium spokesperson service.”

I would say that this could apply perfectly to website construction services. Something along the same lines. “For $5, I will provide a consultation for my website creation services.”

The great thing about this gig title is that it makes it clear that you are: One, not selling anything at $5, except a consultation. And two, that you do offer website creation services, should the consultation yield a sale.

In this case, you do need begin your gig description with a further clarifying statement, to let clients know exactly what they’re getting, from $5 and beyond.